Lily White!  She was rightly named; I have never seen such a fair, delicate face and figure, nor watched the revealings of a nature so pure and gentle as was hers.  She would have been too fair and delicate to be beautiful, but for the brilliancy of those deep blue eyes, the dark shade of that glossy hair, and the litheness of that fragile form; but when months had passed away, and, though the brow was still marble white, and the lip colourless, the cheek wore that deep rose tint, how surpassingly beautiful she was!  We did not dream what had planted that rose-tint there—­we thought her to be throwing off the grief which alone, we believed, had paled her cheek; and we did not observe that her form was becoming more delicate, and that her step was losing its lightness and elasticity.  We loved the sweet Lily dearly at first sight, and she had been with us but a short time before we began to wonder how our home had ever seemed perfect to us previous to her coming.  And our affection was returned by the dear girl.  We knew how much she loved us, when, as the warm season had passed, and her father sent for her to return home, we saw the expression of deep sorrow in every feature, and the silent entreaty that we would persuade him to allow her to remain with us still.

She did not thank me when a letter reached me from her father, in reply to one which, unknown to her, I had sent him, saying, if I thought Lily’s health would not be injured by a winter’s residence in our cold climate, he would comply with my urgent request, and allow her to remain with us until the following spring—­the dear girl could not speak.  She came to me almost totteringly, and wound her arms about my neck, resting her head on mine, and tears from those sweet eyes fell fast over my face; and all the remainder of that afternoon she lay on her couch.  Oh, why did I not think wherefore she was so much overcome?

Ada L——­and Mary R——­, two friends whom I had loved from childhood, I had selected as companions for our dear Lily on her arrival among us, and the young ladies, from their first introduction to her, had vied with me in my endeavours to dispel the gloom from that fair face, and to make her happy; and they shared, almost equally with her relatives, dear Lily’s affections.

Ada—­she is changed now—­was a gay, brilliant, daring girl; Mary, witty and playful, though frank and warm-hearted; but it made me love them more than ever.  The gaiety and audacity of the one was forgotten in the presence of the thoughtful, timid Lily:  and the other checked the merry jest which trembled on her lips, and sobered that roguish eye beside the earnest, sensitive girl; so that, though we were together almost daily, dear Lily did not understand the character of the young ladies.

The warm season had passed away, and October brought an addition to our household—­Cousin Rowland—­as handsome, kind-hearted, and good-natured a fellow as ever lived, but a little cowardly, if the dread of the raillery of a beautiful woman may be called cowardice.